fight between them and the French in which one Frenchman
was killed, and Champlain narrowly escaped death through
the explosion of his own musket. At Cape Cod De Monts
turned back. Five of the six weeks allotted to the voyage
were over, and lack of food made it impossible to enter
Long Island Sound. Hence 'Sieur de Monts determined to
return to the Island of St Croix in order to find a place
more favourable for our settlement, as we had not been
able to do on any of the coasts which he had explored
during this voyage.'

We now approach the picturesque episode of Port Royal.
De Monts, having regained St Croix at the beginning of
August, lost no time in transporting his people to the
other side of the Bay of Fundy. The consideration which
weighed most with him in establishing his headquarters
was that of trade. Whatever his own preferences, he could
not forget that his partners in France expected a return
on their investment. Had he been in a position to found
an agricultural colony, the maize fields he had seen to
the south-west might have proved attractive. But he
depended largely upon trade, and, as Champlain points
out, the savages of Massachusetts had nothing to sell.
Hence it was unwise to go too far from the peltries of
the St Lawrence. To find a climate less severe than that
of Canada, without losing touch with the fur trade, was
De Monts' problem. No one could dream of wintering again
at St Croix, and in the absence of trade possibilities
to the south there seemed but one alternative--Port Royal.